The Seabirds at Sea Team (SAST) of the Joint Nature Conservation Committee (JNCC) has been studying the distribution and abundance of seabirds and marine mammals in the waters around Britain since 1979. During the 1970s, with the development of the offshore North Sea oil industry, there was concern over the lack of available data on seabird dispersion at sea. Funding from the United Kingdom government and the oil and gas industry resulted in the establishment of SAST, and enabled surveys to commence in the North Sea. These surveys have continued in British and Irish waters, and along with similar data collected by other European countries, have been incorporated into the European Seabirds at Sea (ESAS) database. This database contains over 1.5 million seabird and over 13,000 cetacean records, and provides information on distribution and abundance throughout the year. Atlases are produced that depict seabird distribution and abundance (e.g. NERC 1998; Pollock et al. 1997; Stone et al. 1995a; Webb et al. 1990), and vulnerability of seabirds to surface pollution (e.g. Carter et al. 1993; NERC 1998; Tasker et al. 1990; Webb et al. 1995).